Over the past few months I’ve been running a survey of SCA rapier fighters. As the title suggests, it contains mostly random and seemingly un-related questions.

This survey set out to test a series of ad hoc hypotheses encountered in the rapier community and to answer certain questions. As of this writing I’ve received 391 responses. Thank you all for participating and humoring me. Unfortunately, today is the slightly less interesting demographic analysis. In future weeks I’ll discuss what those hypotheses were and the results of testing them.

None of the results should be considered definitive or even particularly well-collected and well-analyzed. I leave such quality collection to the professionals.

If there are any questions that might be answered by the data that you might have, please let me know and I’ll see what’s available.

Gaps in the data collection

In retrospect, I should have captured information regarding age, time in the SCA, and time fencing in the SCA. The lack will be noted in discussion as we go (frequently. So frequently).

As a supplemental data source for the analysis, we have the Society level rapier authorization stats for Q2 2016.

Response Rates

As of this writing I have received a total of 384 responses. Table 1 shows the breakdown by kingdom, what percent of the total each kingdom accounted for (kingdom response/total responses), and what percent of each kingdom’s authorized fighters participated (kingdom response/authorized fighters)

Table 1:

Kingdom

Responding

Percent of respondents

Kingdom Participation Rate

Weight

None reported

13

3.39%

N/A

Aethelmearc

20

5.21%

7.09%

1.30

An Tir

11

2.86%

2.69%

3.42

Ansteorra

24

6.25%

7.77%

1.18

Artemisia

9

2.34%

8.41%

1.09

Atenveldt

5

1.30%

3.25%

2.83

Atlantia

50

13.02%

20.00%

0.46

Avacal

15

3.91%

11.28%

0.81

Caid

12

3.13%

6.22%

1.48

Calontir

5

1.30%

5.88%

1.56

Drachenwald

4

1.04%

3.23%

2.85

Ealdormere

16

4.17%

20.78%

0.44

East

38

9.90%

9.16%

1.00

Gleann Abhann

10

2.60%

8.70%

1.06

Lochac

8

2.08%

3.81%

2.41

Meridies

36

9.38%

46.15%

0.20

Middle

23

5.99%

4.35%

2.11

Northshield

20

5.21%

7.43%

1.24

Outlands

24

6.25%

17.65%

0.52

Trimaris

32

8.33%

19.39%

0.47

West

9

2.34%

6.43%

1.43

Grand Total

384

100.00%

9.19%

To understate the matter, participation rates varied greatly. Nearly 50% of Meridies (the kingdom of the survey author) participated. This rate was 5 times the Society-wide participation rate. On the other hand, other kingdoms participated at a rate only a third that of the Society-wide rate. In some areas of the analysis I may use that ratio to determine weighted responses. Maybe.

Rank

Of the respondents, 48 were Masters of Defense. 93 were White Scarf or an equivalent. On the other end of the spectrum, 133 had received no rapier-related award yet.

A quick look at this notes that there are a couple of kingdoms, especially in the northwestern portion of the United States, where the data is going to be even less accurately representative of the community. Of course

Gender

As shown in Table 4, 110 respondents were female, 384 male, 4 non-binary, and 5 did not disclose.

Table 4: Gender response rate

Gender

Count

Ratio

5

1.30%

Female

110

28.65%

Male

265

69.01%

Non-binary

4

1.04%

Grand Total

384

Here is a point where having the age and timeframe criteria would be useful:

Aethelmearc’s survey showed their population to be 30.5% female, 69.5% male. The findings (28.9% female, 69% male, 1% non-binary) are in keeping with this finding so it may be that Aethelmearc’s findings can serve as a reasonable approximation of the Society in some matters, especially those around the relative proportion of new male and female participants, differences in the rate of advancement for male and female fighters, and rate of loss of male and female fencers.

The Aethelmearc survey, for its part, found no significant difference in gender tenure until after 7 year mark (34.8-36.2% female for 0-6 years, 20% female after). Whether this drop-off is society wide or a result of sampling number and whether it has continued in the past four years are, I believe, data points that would help our community continue in its development to serve all fencers better.

Gender vs. Rank

The Aethelmearc survey seems to also have not calculated the gender vs. rank rates. As noted above, having this information (and the rate of advancement by gender) would be useful knowledge. Table 5 shows the current state of the Society, but only a snapshot that is not on its own definitive.

As has been discussed in many fora, the proportion of female MODs is much lower than the proportion of female fencers. This topic could, and possibly should, be the topic of its own survey (one conducted in a more serious manner than this).

Thus ends the demographics discussion. Future installments will cover the the actual assumptions challenged, hypotheses tested, and questions… questioned, and what the data revealed.

Regarding Table 5, are those data on gender and rank just from people who responded to your survey? Would the gender ratios be any different for MoDs if you gathered data on MoDs from the Orders of Precedence for each Kingdom (so as to get the absolute numbers of MoDs, not just those who responded to the survey)?

(I imagine the ratios will still be roughly the same, but the OPs would include the peers who are not active on social media and might not have seen the survey. For that matter, it might be interesting to see the gender ratios of fencers who post in FB groups versus those who do not.)

That is the data just from the respondents. I considered doing a comparison to the list of MODs (maintained on Ask the MODs, though it does not include gender information so guessing would be needed) but decided to stick with the data as collected. The 10% number is in keeping with previous discussions of MOD gender composition (10-15%).